Red Sox at Fenway

Josh has been waiting for this day since we came to Boston.  Red Sox game with his dad.  The weather was stormy, but that didn’t stop this baseball fan from staying from opening pitch to the bitter end.  Red Sox lost 4-0 to the White Sox, but Josh soaked up every minute, especially loving the 7th inning stretch “Take me out the the Ball Game.” Grandpa Banks sent a text to Rusty telling him to buy Josh a Red Sox hat, just like he had the first time he visited.  It hasn’t left his head since and he said it was his favorite part of the whole experience.

Josh had also read “The Fenway Foul Up” and so he knew lots of the in’s and outs and special quirks of the stadium. 

Concord and Walden Pond

“By the rude bridge that arched the food,
Their flag to Aprils breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.”
                                     --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Walden Pond
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”
                                         --Henry David Thoreau

“Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.”
                                        --HDT

“A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.”     ---HDT

We also stumbled on the Boston temple on our way home from Concord

The car is making us lazy. Steps we took today:

Journals

Here's an entry josh typed/spoke on his iPod. "We are in Boston we are almost done we leave the 14th we came hear the14th we have done Museum's, I went to Fenway, we ate fast food, and Road T, and played screens, explored Harvard square, tomorrow we are going to the Franklin Park zoo, soon we will go to the MIT Museum, we have spent lots of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$, we asked lots of ????????????????????????, Boston is very fun I do not want to leave."

Josh: yesterday I had an adventure and got pizza, frozen yogurt and a scrape.  I fell off my scooter.

Blake:I loved the golf balls.  (at the Children’s Museum)

Impromptu Girls Trip to NYC

I had been bugging Rusty for a few days to take an NYC road trip.  As we were driving home from Cape Ann I could tell he was tired and not up for a 3.5 hour road trip with the kids.  He suggested that I go by myself.  I was tempted, but unsure if I could navigate the city in a car, and also, I wanted to share the memories with him and the kids.  But all the way home I was planning all the things I could see or do in a day.  At about 10:30 that night, I thought it would be so fun to take Halle with me.  That way I wouldn’t be lonely, and we could have an unforgettable girls day.  She was stirring in her bed so Rusty crept in and asked her if she wanted to wake up early to go to NYC.  Her cute eyes flew open and she nodded vigorously.  Then the poor thing couldn’t go back to sleep because she was so excited.  I woke her up about 6:40 and we were on the road about 7:15.  Getting to Manhattan was surprisingly easy and our first stop was the Brooklyn Bridge  Park for Smorgasburg. This delightful food festival originated in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, hence the name.  It is a self described “Flea food market” with over 100 vendors coming out each weekend.  And oh what fun!  Local food purveyors from all over New York come to showcase innovative, yummy, local food.  Halle and I had a culinary FEAST, and it was hard to pick which of the delicious offerings to try.  So we didn’t pick.  We had a lemon poppy seed donut from Dough, a Vermont Maple Lemonade (Halle declared it the best lemonade she’s ever had), cold peanut noodles from Noodle Lane, Gooey Cake, a drool worthy BBQ brisket sandwich from Mighty Quinn, A hand shaved lemon ice from People Pops, and a lack luster dairy free strawberry push pop from Alchemy Creamy.  With the exception of the push pop, everything we ate was fantastic.  And the view?  Even better than the food.  Halle kept exclaiming that it was so perfect that it didn’t even look real. 

The only downside to the event was the big fat parking ticket I got for parking on the street.  I was trying to be so city savvy, and it bit me in the bum. 

Now driving got really interesting.  A million one way streets, crazy taxi drivers, a bazillion people…I think Halle and I were both shaking by the time we finally made it safe and sound to a parking garage on 50th and Broadway.  Although, driving over the Brooklyn Bridge was a highlight. 

We booked it to the TKTS booth in hopes that there were still tickets for the Cinderella Matinee.  And we were in luck!  Tickets in hand, we walked to Central park to take a little rest.  Oh how I love that park. 

Cinderella was playing at the Broadway Theatre.  It was such a beautiful vnenue!  I stole a pic off Google images (again) because all my pics were terrible.

The show was perfect for a mommy daughter day in the city.  The special effects were really fun, and we were left in awe as the ferry godmother appeared, and at all Cinderella’s beautiful, magical dresses.  We had purchased the sound track on our drive in, and I think by the time we got home that night we had most of the songs memorized. 

Then it was time for a special treat. Chelsi, Ellen, Ashley and Ami were in town having a girls trip of their very own.  We met at Levain for cookies and then dinner at the Shake Shack.  What a fun thing to get to catch up with Chelsi in NYC. Even though we don’t get to talk very often, when we do, we just pick right back up where we left off. It was the highlight of the day, for sure. 
All too soon we were saying goodbye to our beloved city.  It was a day for the books, that’s for sure.  I love my sweet little Halle—it was so fun to have this adventure with her.  There is no one else I’d rather spend the day with than her. She’s always up for anything.  She kept saying, “This is like a dream!  I can’t believe we are here!”  Melted my heart. And on a side note, we were FINALLY able to finish Johnny Tremain on audiobook.  It has taken us months to get though that darn book.  I’m so glad we read it, as it gave us a fun look into Boston right at the cusp of the Revolution. 

The drive home was looooong.  Halle said she wished Josh had invented his people transporter so we could instantly be home.  Me too!

Cape Ann

With the rain finally gone, we decided to head North for a beach day on Cape Ann.  The day was still pretty windy, so we decided to head to a lighthouse and hope the weather improved before we got to the beach..  It was called Eastern Point Lighthouse and had a fun little jetty to hike out on.  I was kind of afraid the wind was going to blow Blake into the ocean, but luckily he stayed on solid ground. 

Next up: Halibut Point State Park.  Halibut Point is made of 440 million year old granite sheets.  It was a granite quarry from about 1840-1930.  Now, it is a beautiful, rocky, coastal seascape.  We loved climbing on all the rocks and looking into the little tide pools.  The hike to the shore line was a beautiful tree-lined, shady trail that was perfect for little feet. 

After a few hours here it was still really windy, so we decided to give up on the beach and hit the town of Rockport.  What a perfect little costal town!  I absolutely loved it.  We had a delicious dinner of fish and chips and enjoyed looking in some of the cute little shops.

After dinner, lo and behold, the sun came out and the wind stopped blowing!  There was a little beach right in town so we decided we had to stick our toes in.  We ended up staying and playing for quite awhile.  You may have noticed several of our stuffed animal family members in these pictures.  Well, Foppy was hitching a ride in my backpack, and somehow wormed his way out.  When we set the bag down we noticed he was missing.  This distressed Blake quite a bit, so Rusty and the kids distracted him while I backtracked in search of Foppy.  Which was no easy task.  We had been all over that town.  Thankfully I found him near some rocks where we’d stopped to rest.  Crisis averted. 

I could not have imagined more picturesque scenery.  

Steps we took today:  ehhr….mostly steps Rusty took today.  His 17 mile run helped boost us to an all time record high.

Boston Strong

Admittedly, I haven’t been running too often since we’ve ben here.  Josh was afraid for me to leave them alone the first two weeks when Rusty wasn’t here, so I snuck off early a few morning to squeeze some miles in, but I felt pretty guilty about it.  As he’s been here longer and feels more comfortable, Rusty and I have been able to go on a few fun runs together.  Rusty has been a running machine as he’s in the middle of training for his first marathon.  This run was up around Fresh Pond in Cambridge:

And Rusty was a total Rockstar this last Saturday, doing 17 miles.  His longest run ever!  Remember Hurricane Arthur?  It was STILL raining when he set out for his run.  It rained for about the first 5 miles.  He was pretty soaked.  And hardcore.  I joined him for the last 7 1/2 on the Esplanade.

True love is being willing to kiss a very sweaty forehead.

Another run through Harvard:

Boston Children’s Museum

It was forecast to rain for most of the day, but luckily the Children’s museum does $1 admission on Friday nights.  It wasn’t the typical way to spend the 4th of July, and it was pretty darn fun.  But first up was breakfast at the Deluxe Town Diner in Watertown.  This place got rave reviews on Yelp and Chowhound but we thought it was pretty gross.  While waiting for our table we took advantage of the fact that it was only sprinkling and played at the park for a little bit. 

Then the real rain began.  It poured rain the rest of the day and night.  Again, Rusty was our hero.  He dropped us off right at the doors of the Children’s Museum and then parked the car and ran though the rain. 

This museum was really fun.  Lots of things that kids of all ages enjoyed.  Halle’s favorite was playing Musical “chairs” on a big electronic pad. 

Josh’s favorite was Basketball

And Blake loved the exhibit where you could run golf balls down all sorts of different tracks. 

And I thought this climbing structure was very cool.

What a perfect rainy day activity.  And I was especially glad we had the good fortune of the rainy day falling on a $1 Friday night.  SCORE!

Rainy Boston: